Here is episode #2 in the battle of the “ST, First Contact” art departments. The great Herman Zimmerman came to me and said we need to work out what these escape pods do and how they are launched for the VFX sequence. So I started drawing pods and and working out the mechanics of the launch system. the first sketch was of a grenade style pod that I passed on, and went for a more faceted look. from there a color rendering was done and a quick launch scene with an explosive hatch that would add some visual excitement when the pods ejected,,,, Meanwhile up at ILM Alex Jeager was doing the same thing for his boss Jeff Mann. The stuff Alex did went to the producers, got approved and a model was ordered to be built. the next day Herman took our stuff over and came back and said these are now considered art exercises, so back to the Vulcan ships for you. He laughed and told me the story!! We both laughed and and I was going up to ILM in a week or two and couldn’t wait to see what Alex had come up with,,,, Once there the model was pretty far along and was being constructed mainly from Vacu-formed pieces. wow this is looking cool and then saw the drawings Alex had done hanging on the wall. loved the cool simplicity he had designed and especially how he merged the exterior of the “E” to be a functional part of the pod!!! As always the amazing amount of fun on this film especially getting to work with my ILM heros will always be amongst my favorite Star Trek memories. here are the pod concepts and one shot of the finished ILM model!

grenade pass

sketch

color pass, 227 is my dad's HP badge #

3-2-1, blast-off!!!!

awww!!! the brilliance of Alex Jeager

one of Bill George's and John Goodson's handywork!

wow what a shot and loved the Goldsmith theme that played out this scene!

wow thats cool!!! Rick Sternbach worked on both FC and Voyager, so I am sure his own design influence just carried from one show to the other!!! One thing About Rick is his constant attention to carrying architectures from Point A to Point B, and tying them together in a thoughtful and logical fashion.

The escape pods launching is an amazing sequence in the film, with Jerry Goldsmith’s score perfectly accentuating its importance. The crew are abandoning ship. They are leaving, believing the Enterprise is doomed. They did all they could to try and save her, but it just wasn’t enough, and it was time to cut and run. I remember sitting in the theater wondering if I would have to endure the heartbreak of seeing yet another Enterprise destroyed before her time.

The choreography of that seen is wonderful, as the pods launch away from the ship and fall into formation as they head toward Earth. Which reminds me: Are there any closer shots of the Enterpise after the pods have left showing the empty bays? I honestly don’t remember.

It was a very cool moment watching the little kinda triangular shapes actually turn into escape pods for once! It wasn’t easy watching Enterprise be abandoned, though. I’ll be watching this with my daughter this weekend, so I’ll be paying more attention to the score throughout the movie. 🙂

The effect of the look of the lifeboats twisting and heading away with the “top” facing forward threw me for a loop, and I thought it was pretty cool. Looking at the images closeup and still, I like the way Alex’s fits in the bay, but I feel like they are able to fly and land by instrument only. I’d like to see a combination of your very utilitarian design, John, with his flight concept and hull as heat shield design.

I remember this great stuff from your Movies Sketchbook. (very inspiring book, BTW) I absolutely love that escape pod launch scene in First Contact. I know the FX team that did TNG really wanted to do one of those but it just wasn’t in the cards. But you guys finally got to do it for FC and it turned out beautifully. I remember sitting in the theater back in the day and thinking how friggin’ sweet it was. 😀

I like your cool sketches but I gotta admit, Alex Jeager’s somewhat more simple pod works better. Sometimes simplicity is the way to go. 🙂

I think it is interesting from an in-universe perspective that these pods have those blast/heat shields. I guess whoever designed them decided that those ships needed tougher pods? They do seem to be on all the tougher ships we saw in FC… not the Defiant, though! :p

I could see your design, John, as the “non-combat” version of the triangle pod. Also, I’d bet the capsule pods from the first sketch are what the 1701-nil’s pods would have looked like, being round and all. 😀

I love the final design and the scene in the movie, but one thing I like more about your design for the pod and the bay is that it’s really clear how people get on and off, with the obvious indent for the door on both. On the final design it’s not so easy to see the connection between the crew walking up those ramps in the film and then getting aboard the pod. Maybe those are doors on the corners, but then they wouldn’t follow the curvature of the corridor like the hatches did in the movie. That or the crew go up a ladder through the triangular window hatch, but that seems a little awkward for emergencies.

By the way, the “grenade” design looks kind of similar to the escape pod in the new movie, did you design that?

I too liked the lifeboat scene. It’s completely different from escape pods of the past. And seeing them visually on the exterior of the Enterprise-E and later ships really give character to the starship.

John, your drawings show a clearly-recognisable door on the side of the pod, but there’s nothing visible on the model or in Jaeger’s pass on the design (unless it’s that area on the bottom of the pod, which looks more like a thruster than a door. What’s up with that?

I liked Alex’s idea of the hatch covers just being the top of the pods, but from that part down, I like a lot of your ideas because it’s more relatable. You can see a door, and the body is bulkier with more obvious windows. It’s easier to imagine how it relates to a person and how they’d enter, and what it might be like inside, looking out the windows, the scale of it, etc.

Oh snap! Hey John! Good to see you’re still blogging! Thanks for the kuddos too! I personally like the depth and detail in your version, I wasn’t thinking too much of giving the people much room to move, just enough space for a couple of seats ala apollo capsule. Part of the idea of using the outer ‘door’ as the heat shield came from the look of the exterior panels which you had already done nicely and just for the speed of exit. You don’t want to get stuck if the extrior door panel on your pod doesn’t work! Also out of VFX simplicity, we didn’t want hundreds of door panels flying around banging into the pods etc… Therefore the simple solution of using that outer panel as the heat shield. Also I just loved the idea that even though you’ve left the E behind, you still bring a piece of her with you 🙂
And yes indeed John’s grenade version lives on in the new Trek movie! Not only as a visual effect, but also as a cool life size prop! sweet!
now about that borg queen……. 🙂

Hey Alex! I dont know if you’ve seen it or not, but I’ve been pestering John about about one of your projects, the Norway class. Any chance you could do write up on her or dig up any concept sketches? I know the buzz around the net is that the model got lost or something, I know the model in the film had the Defiantsupper texture applied to the underside. Would love to know more about it 🙂

I think its really cool that the 2 concepts you guys came up with were so close together in appearance, even down the the ‘fins’ at the bottom 🙂

I just had to call the Other Half up to look at these sketches – we both love this movie so much. I always think of this as “The Grand Piano Scene” as the pods look like a flock of Baby Grands taking flight. Thank you so much for sharing your design work on this, John – and I’m a little choked as the music’s playing itself right now.